The Tiger Who Ate Me

 

The Tiger Who Ate Me

In a remembered dream from a mostly forgotten childhood,

I run
   in panicked circuits
     around the darkened house
 a tiger chasing me
   and even though I know
      the tiger has eaten
       everyone else in the house
 I think I can escape until
 caught,

   I sit on the floor at the tiger’s mercy

  while it gently removes my shoe

  and begins eating me from the ground up

 

It is the only dream from childhood I remember

Before life began eating me

 

A little at a time
  devoured
   a foot first
A little at a time

 

Until only the thought of me
remained in secret silence

 

How is it, then,

That I vanquished the tiger?

How is it that

any of my soul remained?

 

How did I make my return journey,
reclaim the tender knowledge of worth,
of acceptance,
of me?

 

I am the tiger

Mary Beth Watt

 

Mary Beth Watt left the Silicon Valley experience for a home in Ashland Oregon, where she is a fangirl of The Oregon Shakespeare Festival as well as an amateur actor on lesser stages. Her poems have appeared on Your Daily Poem, The Autumn Sound Review, Soul-Lit, and in The Oregon Poetry Association's special journal, Pandemic.